


Present Imperfect

by SofiaBane



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Depression, Grief, M/M, Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter), Rare Pairings, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 17:21:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15756312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SofiaBane/pseuds/SofiaBane
Summary: The first full moon after Sirius’s death, Kingsley stays with him.





	Present Imperfect

**Author's Note:**

> This comes from a tumblr post [here](http://hiddenhogwarts.tumblr.com/post/177179890538/brilliantsnafu-so-it-seems-like-kingsleyremus-is), asking why on earth Remus/Kingsley isn't a thing. So. Here we are. I really enjoy the adult members of the Order, and both of them deserve good things.
> 
> Content warning for depression, and discussion of Sirius's death.

It takes place just over a week after the Ministry break-in, the Department of Mysteries, the veil. The Order _had_ to convene at Grimmauld Place, even if it is sickening. It should have been Remus to clear out the painful bits of Sirius that remain – that he had left the washing up in the sink as he always did, that he’d been halfway through a glass of whiskey before Snape summoned them to the Ministry, that he’d  left in too much of a hurry to close the thrown-open cloak closet behind him. But Remus doesn’t do the tidying up. He thinks it was Moody or Kingsley or Tonks. They were used to handling proper crime scenes, anyway.

But after that day Grimmauld Place is never really empty again. The Order strategizes. Sometimes they come merely for the company – not that any of them are _brilliant_ company in the midst of grief and fear, but drinking together is mildly better than drinking alone.

Snape is around quite a lot, on Dumbledore’s behalf, and for once Remus doesn’t have to track him down to beg for wolfsbane like he’s had to do _every fucking time_ since he left Hogwarts. The full moon is on Sunday, the 30 th, and he had meant to spend it with Sirius as he always had. They would reinforce the cellar, put on a locking charm that couldn’t be lifted until the morning, and Padfoot would stay with him, his warmth and scent soothingly familiar. Instead – well, he’s not quite sure what he will do.

Severus relinquishes the wolfsbane with surprisingly little venom, this time. “Albus said you should spend the full moon at the castle,” he mutters.

The castle? The shrieking shack, surely. Remus musters the energy to shrug. “I’ll decide in a few days,” he says. “Tell him thank you.” Severus’s look indicates he will do no such thing.

Nobody else asks him directly but he gets the distinct sense they discussed it without him. And then they talk about it in such a way that implies they assume he _will_ be going to Hogwarts, that the choice had been made for him, and honestly it is such a relief to be told what to do. Tonks says she’ll be his Auror escort onto the grounds that day, and Molly says if comes to the Burrow the morning after, she’ll cook him up the best breakfast he’s ever had.

But then in that week, with every Death Eater sentenced there is a new attack. Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange: a Muggle rights advocate is killed in her home. Walden Macnair: a wizarding village up north is burned to the ground. Lucius Malfoy: a bomb is planted in Gringotts. Voldemort is unhinged, making reckless decisions now that he can no longer move in secret. Moody brings word that Fudge is expected to resign imminently, and an Auror shall take his place. None of them can find much comfort in that, either.

It is late afternoon on the 30th when Snape’s doe arrives at Grimmauld Place. “ _Don’t come,_ ” it intones in his voice. “ _It is not safe._ ” And Remus goes immediately sick, wondering what that could mean.

The house is empty but for Kingsley, and by the time Remus finds him in the dusty library it’s clear he has received a message of his own. He is pulling his cloak over his broad shoulders. “I’ve got to go out,” he says.

“Do you know what it is?”

“More of the same, I imagine.” He takes in Remus’s desperate look. “ _Please_ don’t come. We couldn’t bear another loss so soon.”

Because Remus is a liability, in a way nobody else is. Werewolves could be killed on sight, in self-defense, particularly now that Greyback’s pack has been mobilized by Voldemort. “Tell everyone to be safe,” Remus says, though it will kill him to wonder and to worry. He is always anxious the day of the moon anyway, stalking the house and chewing on bits of hard stuff. Sirius used to laugh at these tics. Remus sees Kingsley out, and then he goes to prepare the cellar.

The wards are good; Moody had asked Emmeline Vance and Hestia Jones, their most talented members with runes, to supplement Dumbledore’s security on the house. Remus collects everything he needs: a bucket of water, healing potions, bandages, splints. He will leave his wand outside the door. Perhaps it would look like a strange assortment to anyone who knows he takes wolfsbane, but in reality wolfsbane only makes him non-violent, not properly _calm_. He will be an anxious disaster of a wolf, but the potion paralyzes him with that anxiety. So he still bites and scratches himself sometimes, those animal responses to stress, and those leave scars too.

The summer is more merciful than the winter, with its shorter nights, but it means he has more time to pace the house, sick with fear. There are no messages. The bitterness of the wolfsbane bites at the back of his throat, making his stomach curdle. At last, just after 8 p.m., he barricades himself in the cellar. He waits.

The transformation seems to go faster as he’s aged. Perhaps the wolf’s nature has become his own properly. Sirius would sometimes say he was a dog trapped in a man’s body, that the world made sense only when he was Padfoot.

Remus’s more complex thoughts and feelings fall away first. His senses heighten, his shanks elongate. He’d already been nude, and he watches the fur burst from his lanky body in waves. He shakes off. This is who he is, truly.

He feels the magic of the house shift before he hears the door. That is another sense heightened by his curse, that as a werewolf he can taste the magic in the air. The wards stretch and click closed again as someone enters the house. Then the cellar door swings open.

Kingsley. Remus recognizes his silhouette at the same time as he smells-tastes the warm and spicy scent of him. He hadn’t known that he _had_ known Kingsley’s scent, before now. “Remus,” he says softly, peering into the dim cellar.

Remus, lying against a pile of blankets, doesn’t move. He doesn’t trust himself – he’s still a wolf, his instinct for violence is still _in here_ , only muted for the moment. He hadn’t realized Kingsley would be back tonight – he would have locked the cellar door more decisively if he’d known. He does not dare to move.

Kingsley descends the stairs, stepping carefully over the bandages and potions. But the water he picks up, carrying it across the cellar with him. “You’re panting,” he says. “Remus. _Moony_. Here.”

He places the bucket before Remus, and then slides seated on the blankets beside him. Remus can’t think of the last time he let a human get so close on these nights. He wants Padfoot, he wants to curl up and tuck his nose into Padfoot’s warm scruff. The human beside him smells wrong, feels wrong. The magic he carries with him is wrong.

 _Oh_ – some more logical part of his brain clicks at this. Kingsley is covered in dry bitter magic, not his own. A fight. There’d been a fight. He needs to go, get out, save them this time –

Kingsley drops a large, warm hand between Remus’s shoulderblades. “Moony,” he says again – trying it out because that’s only what Padfoot ever called him, but it fits now, because this wolf scarcely answers to _Remus_. “I came to tell you that we’re fine. That everyone is fine. I returned so you wouldn’t worry. I can go,” he offers carefully, “but I would rather stay.”

Moony doesn’t move. He doesn’t shake Kingsley’s hand off his back, either. His tail gives a tentative swish against the stone floor.

And Kingsley’s laugh is gentle. “You’re normally so eloquent,” he says with a smile, “but this will do, won’t it? Here.” And he is pulling the bucket closer, because Moony _has_ been panting for as long as he’s been down here, and he is thirsty. It feels strange and embarrassing, an animal act even as simple as lapping water, but Kingsley seems quite at ease watching him. He has shrugged off his robe, sitting now in slacks and a breezy dashiki, and seems to have no intention of going. Moony licks the last droplets of water from his muzzle and waits for news of the battle.

Kingsley recognizes his intention. He runs his other hand over his face, making the sticky, bitter magic swirl off him like dust. “The Death Eaters want to enter Hogwarts,” he says. “We assume this was only a trial run, that they won’t properly attack until the castle is populated again. But we had to run them off the secret passages from Hogsmeade. Mad Eye thinks it would be best to block them off entirely. It’s not worth the risk.”

Remus could have been in the shrieking shack. He could have been _there_ , could have helped, could have fought…. He fights back this anxiety and restlessness, but unsuccessfully, as he paces the floor. Had Bellatrix been there? He knows without a doubt that he would be capable of ripping her throat out. Padfoot would have wanted him to.

Kingsley lets him pace, lets his hackles raise and lips curl. He’s not running, _why isn’t he running_? Instead he’s reaching for his discarded robe, fishing in his pockets, he will probably stun Moony but really that would be safest –

He pulls out a parcel of butcher’s paper, tied with string.

“I got to the butcher’s just before closing,” he says, his voice steady even as he avoids eye contact with Moony. The paper is sealed with a charm, that only pops when he undoes the string, otherwise Moony would have smelled it on him before he’d entered the house. He’s brought _meat._

He holds out the butcher’s paper full of bones, steak bones glistening with fat and full of marrow. “I couldn’t ask the butcher what an appropriate number of bones was for a werewolf,” he says with a smile. “I told him it was for a great dane instead. I hope that’s alright.” He picks up a bone by two fingers and drops it to the floor before Moony.

The wolf in him lunges and the human in him pulls back, and the resulting motion probably looks like he’s tripped over his own paws. “Moony,” Kingsley says quietly, setting the parcel aside. “Please, _please_ don’t try to be anything but yourself tonight. All of yourself.”

His jaws close around the steakbone, cracking it, but then his human rears back again. It is shameful, it is strange – he has only been a beast around other beasts, and Kingsley is this sweet decent _good_ man –

Kingsley looks away. “I can go,” he reiterates.

No. He wants the company, even if his presence is nothing like Padfoot’s. It would be enough. Moony sinks to the floor deliberately, in something like peace.

Kingsley exhales. “I grew up with dogs,” he says. His slow, steady tone has always been valuable within the Order, as people are obligated to stop fighting to listen to him. Now it fills the darkness, nearly meditative. “My mother loved them, and she loved the mutts the most. She’d go to the shelters and ask for the dogs who’d been there the longest.” Moony crunches the steakbone between his teeth, and it is embarrassingly loud, but Kingsley isn’t even looking at him. He laps at the thick marrow inside.

“The way Sirius moved through this house… he looked caged. When those dogs were understimulated, they were a danger to nobody more than themselves. And Sirius….” Kingsley breaks off, sighing. “I keep thinking I could have done more for him. I know I could have. Did he ever tell you I took him for runs sometimes?” he asks with a laugh. Moony looks up, curious and delighted. “When I brought over a leash and a collar, he called me a kinky bastard, _of course_. But the neighbors don’t seem the type to appreciate a loose dog in their street.”

Moony’s licking bits of gristle off the bone, and Kingsley is charming the orb of Lumos above them a warmer shade of gold. “Could I read to you?” he offers. “I know it’s not quite the fun of hunting rabbits with Padfoot,” he adds with a smile. “He talked about those nights like they were the best of his life. You were probably the best thing to ever happen to him.”

The _wolf_ was the best thing to ever happen to Padfoot? It feels wrong, and yet Moony wouldn’t even disagree. It is a pity that so few people have seen the world through the eyes of a beast. Sirius had loved with his dog side, not his human side – passionately and whole-heartedly and a bit recklessly. Moony wonders what it means to love as a wolf.

Kingsley is flipping through the book he’s just pulled out of his robes. “I have wondered why you didn’t, ah, entertain yourself on the nights you were a wolf. Of course you’d destroy the furniture, every dog does when it is bored. For our bigger dogs, we had thick rubber chew toys, and great lengths of rope. You couldn’t be more destructive than our mastiff mix. I only thought you might take offense if I brought you toys tonight. But maybe in the morning, you could say whether it’s something you’d like for next time.”

 _Next time_. He wonders how Kingsley remains so exceptionally good, in the midst of everything.

Kingsley’s finger marks a page in the book; he gestures to indicate it. “I got this from his room,” he says, as though confessing. “It’s not like the proper Black library has much in the way of Muggle literature.” And if Remus could have spoken then he would have explained that Sirius’s Muggle library was an act of rebellion as much as an actual artistic appreciation. They’d go to used bookshops together sometimes, when they’d been young. Sirius bought books because he wanted to paint their covers onto his jean jackets as often as because he wanted to read them. Amazing to think this tome might have last been touched by him twenty years ago.

He inhales, wondering if he could smell anything left of Padfoot still on it – but really, this entire house still smells like him. He lingers on the upholstery, in his wardrobe, in the hair potions he’d left on the edge of the bath. Earlier tonight Remus had considered bringing a piece of his clothing down into the cellar, to breathe in the scent as though it would ever substitute for Padfoot’s presence. In the end he’d decided against it, because he couldn’t bear to destroy anything of his.

He has crawled a bit closer to Kingsley, instinctively wanting warmth and familiarity. Kingsley’s hand comes to rest between his shoulderblades again, but Moony flinches just a bit at the touch. It’s strange if not properly illicit – they have been good colleagues and perhaps even friends up to this point, but the intimacy of it, of allowing anyone but Padfoot to see him like this, to _touch_ him like this….

Kingsley’s thumb scrubs at his tight back. “It’s okay,” he says, because his ambivalence must be apparent even in the wolf’s body language. “It’s okay. He always said it was easier when he didn’t have to be human.”

And when Kingsley leans back against the wall, kicking his legs out, Moony also settles beside him. Kingsley is _petting_ him, and the rhythms of his hand and of his breathing are steadying.

Kingsley returns to the book. “Poetry,” he says lightly. “I expect you know more of poetry than I do, you’ll have to tell me in the morning if what I picked is rubbish. I thought it would require less concentration than a novel, in any case. Here.” He holds the book out as though Moony could read with him, but the wolf’s vision doesn’t work like that, eyes positioned farther apart than a human’s. He closes his eyes instead as Kingsley begins to read. “ _Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky, like a patient etherized upon a table_ ….”

Kingsley is steady, stable, solid. He is the most solid thing Moony has experienced since Sirius’s death, since the entire world has turned into the same whispery, inviting mist that filled the veil itself. The weight of his body is a comfort, and somehow Moony ends up with his chin on Kingsley’s knee, and Kingsley’s hand is rubbing at his scruff, and it is good and soft and perfect.

“ _Do I dare disturb the universe? In a minute there is time, for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse._ ”

Eliot’s words and Kingsley’s tone lull Moony into something like peace. Sirius had escaped the dementors in his canine form, but even Padfoot couldn’t entirely escape the ones that remained in his head afterward. And Moony – _Remus_ , if one may make the distinction – is not so fortunate as to be able to escape at will.

But in some ways, he has also made peace with the wolf. It has always been his patronus – though on the rare occasions he summons it, it still garners curious looks. But he knows that the wolf is the strongest part of himself, and god willing, perhaps it is the part of him that will see him through this.

They have an entire war to survive.

“ _We have lingered in the chambers of the sea, by sea-girls wreathed with seaweed and brown, ‘til human voices wake us, and we drown._ ”

Kingsley sets the book aside for a moment, keeping his place with a finger. “What do you think?” he asks solicitously, as though they are scholars holding a salon, and not a battered werewolf and an Auror huddled in a cellar. But Kingsley’s fingers work through his thick fur as he considers his words. “I’m sorry I’m not him,” he says plainly, at last. “I know it was supposed to be him.”

And Remus is grateful for his imposed silence, because he wouldn’t know what to say to this otherwise. It _was_ supposed to be him. It was supposed to be him the previous time too, when Azkaban stole Sirius away. Their entire story is already a story of loss, and Remus thought he was already practiced in grieving Sirius from the first time around but apparently not. He has never grown accustomed to the wolf’s vocalizations, but he feels a low whimper in the back of his throat now.

“Moony. Come outside.”

Kingsley is sitting up, but Moony looks back, questioning and unsure. The fewer surprises in his environment, the less chance anything bad will happen. That the _wolf_ will happen.

Kingsley’s lips are curling in a smile. “I will have to put you on a leash, too,” he says. “For plausible deniability, should anyone be looking out their windows this late at night.” A ruffle of Moony’s ears, as though he’s actually a dog of whom Kingsley is fond, and then he stands.

And carefully, Moony follows him up the cellar steps. It has been so long since he’s seen the moon like this.

Kingsley wasn’t kidding – there is a leash and collar hung neatly in one of the cupboards. Sirius had probably loved it. He’d laughed uproariously when James had gotten them matching dog food bowls for the first Christmas after they’d transformed. (“It’s not _that_ funny, Pads,” James had said after a few minutes of Sirius doubled over. – “Yes, it is,” Sirius wheezed. “ _Look_.” And he’d pulled out a gift bag addressed to James, and James pulls out a _salt lick_ , and it’s just… perfect.)

The collar wouldn’t fit Moony, but Kingsley drops the leash in a loop around his neck. He steps back and then presses a fist to his mouth, hiding a smile. “I’m sorry,” he says. “You look absurd. And adorable,” he adds in reassurance, still smiling. He is pulling on his sturdy Auror’s boots and anchoring his wand along his forearm. Remus can smell the fresh night air even through the thousand wards that surround the home.

Kingsley cracks open the door just enough to cast any number of surveillance spells upon the street first. They are alone. So he reaches down, and easily he takes the leash. They go.

Immediately the setting awakens him, the thousand scents and tastes and sounds the humans don’t know about and Moony’s human can’t properly explain to them afterward. The street, typically grey and run-down, is now alive, with scurrying rodents and babbling gutter water and dry crackling flowerpots, and somehow it is all _beautiful_ to him. He thinks faintly that the wolf must be starved for the outdoors, that even this will suffice. But it will.

The night is clear and the moon is bright, casting everything in a cerulean glow. They are poised on the steps of 12 Grimmauld Place for a long moment. The wolf is _here_ , it’s more present than Remus, and that’s alright. The brilliance with which it sees the world, in a way his human self could not appreciate now, is going to save them both.

Kingsley is watching his body language – he is loose and relaxed, his tail swishing low to the ground. “Moony,” Kingsley says, “run with me?”

The wolf is overjoyed when it first bounds down the steps, paws hitting the crumbling concrete. Kingsley’s still got the leash in hand, and Moony feels more free, that his human hasn’t got to watch his wolf from inside his head if Kingsley is here with him. He is circling, pacing, cherishing his nearly-forgotten strength.

“I couldn’t let you go,” Kingsley says behind him, apologetic. “I’m sorry, that you’ll be set by my mediocre human pace. Are you ready?” He loops the leash around his hand once more, and then they’re stepping into the empty road, and _going._

The wolf is all there is in those first few moments: the wind in its fur, its ears turning to catch sounds from all directions, its cold nose breathing the night air deeply. It ends up in a canter instead of a sprint and yet it is so satisfying: one pair of paws hitting asphalt, then the other. They find their rhythm, and it too is steady and solid.

To the end of the street, rounding the corner, running under flickering streetlamps and around hedges that have overgrown the pavement. Moony’s mouth is open, his tongue lolling out, his sides rising and falling with his panting breaths. _He is free, he is free, he is free._

They run a few miles, through residential neighborhoods and  meager green spaces, until Moony can feel-smell-taste the way the night is receding into a warm summer day to come. He can smell the flowers unfurling in anticipation. The earliest birds are singing, and with these ears, it sounds operatic. The humans would never know these small pleasures, and so he cherishes them.

Eventually Kingsley takes a road that will deliver them back onto Grimmauld Place. He has slowed, and Moony slowed alongside him, moving at a trot that makes his ears bounce. Moony can smell the salt on Kingsley’s skin and the water vapor in his deep breaths.

Moony’s haunches buzz in a satisfying way with those little-used muscles, and his heart pounds deep in his chest, and for awhile he hadn’t been _thinking_ , that he could escape in mind if not in body. Padfoot had said he was a dog trapped in a man’s body, and Moony’s affliction must be the same. He loves his wolf in this moment.

Kingsley is a bit cautious when they round the corner onto Grimmauld Place, because they must ensure none of the neighbors are watching. But it is still late – or more properly, _early_ by now – and Kingsley reveals the façade of 12 Grimmauld Place with a flick of his wand, and he’s letting Moony inside.

In the entry hall, Kingsley lifts the leash over his head, re-placing it on its hook in the cupboard. He looks to Moony, then laughs at himself. “I’m sorry,” he says. “He’d change back, to shower. Even after I told him it didn’t make sense. But I suppose it’s not much longer now.”

It’s four in the morning, and Moony must return to the cellar before his transformation. They are the most unpredictable times, when his two natures warp and shift around each other. But Kingsley follows him down. “Of course I’m staying,” he says, when Moony’s paws falter on the stairs. And really, he appreciates it.

They both fall onto the blankets, and Kingsley pulls the bucket close, casting Aguamenti into it so Moony can drink. He laps the water, probably noisily, but Kingsley is too distracted by conjuring a cloth to mop off his face. “I’ve gotten old,” he laments easily, even though that’s not remotely true. He has just kept up with a werewolf. It must count for something.

Then Kingsley is propped against the wall, and Moony is sprawled against his leg, and Kingsley’s hand is in his fur again, rubbing warm circles into his flesh. “Do you ever sleep?” Kingsley asks, as though Moony could answer. “That seems easiest, so I’m sure it’s _too_ easy.”

Rarely is sleep an option. The werewolf is nocturnal, after all. But with the satisfying ache in his haunches and his lungs, it feels a bit more plausible than average. Moony ends up with his chin on Kingsley’s thigh, and Kingsley’s thumb is stroking the softest fur, just beneath his ear. Their breathing slows. Kingsley extinguishes the orb of Lumos that hangs above them with a last flick of his wand. They fall into sleep.

And when Moony jolts awake later, he thinks he must have woken for the transformation – but no. He needs to sort out his limbs, his _human_ limbs, and he flails for a moment as he takes them in. That had _never_ happened before, that he should sleep through the transformation, and he is so glad of it.

His scarred, lanky body is still curled beside Kingsley, who had slipped down the wall sometime in the morning and is now asleep on his back. Moony recognizes faintly that his head is on Kingsley’s arm, propped on his bicep. It is nice. He should move. He doesn’t.

But then Kingsley stirs, and Moony can’t sit up fast enough, and Kingsley is looking over at him, their faces a scant few inches apart. He smiles and lifts his hand to run through Moony’s hair in a teasing sort of way, and Moony can’t think of a blessed thing to say to him, so he kisses him instead.

Kingsley kisses like the rest of him, warm and solid. The wolf’s sensitivity lingers in the morning after, so he breathes in his deep scent and laps up the spice of his mouth. He can feel the way their magic swirls along one another’s, sparking on their skin.

It is only a kiss, for now. When they pull back Moony becomes aware of his nudity, because Kingsley is looking at him, but it doesn’t feel illicit. A flick of Kingsley’s wand and he has summoned the robe Remus had left on the steps last night, and he’s handing it over, and Remus is shrugging the worn cotton over his shoulders. “Thank you,” he says, awkward because he is so inept at receiving kindness.

Kingsley’s lips tug into a smile. “ _Moony_ ,” he tries out again, in the light of day. It suits them both. And it will never be enough, but it’s _got_ to be enough, because they will never survive otherwise.

He needs to tell Molly that he’ll be over for breakfast soon, and Kingsley with him. “May I?” he asks, taking Kingsley’s wand because his own is still upstairs. “ _Expecto Patronum_ ,” he casts for the first time since Sirius died. His wolf steps from the bright mist, and he is so, so happy to see it.

**Author's Note:**

> The poem is T.S. Eliot’s _Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock._
> 
> Werewolves needing stimulation like dogs comes from [this headcanon](http://artisanscribbles.tumblr.com/post/172505575273/thepuppymastermind-me-consuming-media-dealing).
> 
> And Sirius getting James a salt lick for Christmas comes from [this one](http://captofthesswolfstar.tumblr.com/post/169051445132/like-we-always-talk-about-sirius-dog-traits-and).
> 
> Thanks for reading,  
> Sofia


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